Experts have argued about the ability of this measure to protect against fraudsters
The bill on self-prohibition of loans is submitted to the lower house of parliament. It was developed by a group of deputies headed by Anatoly Aksakov, head of the State Duma Committee on the financial market. The normative act prescribes for Russians a mechanism for independently introducing restrictions on issuing consumer loans to themselves. Legislators expect that this will help in the fight against fraud. However, many independent experts are skeptical about the popularization of such a measure and its widespread use.
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If the law is adopted, citizens will be able to establish in their credit history a ban on the issuance of consumer loans by banks and microfinance organizations (MFIs). At the same time, the norm will not affect mortgages and car loans. It will be possible to establish or lift a ban for free, either remotely through the Gosuslug portal, or in the usual way — by contacting the MFC.
According to Aksakov, if someone does not want to use remote channels, or there will be questions to specialists, then you can contact the bank, and they will help you. To receive the service, you will need SNILS. Information about the self-ban or its removal will be entered in the citizen's credit history.
In the future, banks and MFIs, when concluding an agreement, will need to request information from all qualified credit reference bureaus about the existence of such a self-prohibition. If it was set by the client, then the loan will need to be refused. If a new contract has been concluded, then it can be canceled at the request of the client.
The Bank of Russia took the initiative to introduce a self-prohibition mechanism in June 2022. The purpose of such a measure is to protect Russians from scammers. According to the regulator, last year criminals stole 14.2 billion rubles from bank customers, which is 4.3% more than in 2021.
Most of the money was stolen through remote banking channels (9 .2 billion rubles). The level of use of social engineering in fraudulent schemes in 2022, as always, remained high — 50.4%. “I think that the number of frauds, at least in the part where people establish a self-prohibition, will decrease by 100% after the adoption of the law,” Aksakov emphasized in a conversation with MK. “I hope that the law will be adopted in the spring session.”
Human rights activists positively evaluate this initiative. As Yevgenia Lazareva, head of the project of the Popular Front “For the Rights of Borrowers”, emphasized, setting a voluntary self-ban on loans and loans will allow citizens to solve several problems at once.
First, it will limit the likelihood of spontaneous, ill-considered borrowing and issuing loans and borrowings under the influence of social engineering methods. It happens that borrowers succumb to the impulse or persuasion of intruders and take on obligations that they are unable to cope with. Voluntary self-restraint provides an opportunity to pause and consider your actions while the prior self-restraint is lifted.
Secondly, the established self-limitation will be displayed in the borrower's profile and will be visible to all potential lenders. If lenders ignore this mark and issue borrowed funds, then in the event of fraud, they will have to take all the costs of damages on themselves, even if the borrower dictates the codes and transfers this money to the attackers.
The main skepticism regarding the initiative concerns the willingness of financial institutions to adopt the law in the proposed version. “I think that large banks and MFIs will be against its adoption, because they most often position the loan as an impulse purchase: they package it in an attractive form, hide information about the full cost of borrowed money,” says Dmitry, Chairman of the Board of the International Confederation of Consumer Societies (ConfOP). Yanin. — The bill provides that the restrictions will not apply to mortgages and car loans, so it is possible that in the future the list of these exceptions will become even longer. For example, it may include loans that are issued at points of sale.” There is also the question of whether electronics sellers will be required to ask credit bureaus for this information about borrowers.
For market participants, the adoption of the law is fraught with the fact that it will become more difficult to earn money. At the same time, many Russians, most likely, will not know that such a law exists in the country and what benefits they will get from it. “I don’t see a force that would popularize the idea of abandoning impulse loans,” Yanin explained. “Now the entire marketing of banks is built on the fact that more and more people take loans.”
Representatives of the IT industry indicate that only a small part of citizens will be able to protect against the actions of fraudsters using self-prohibitions. “The law will save someone from trouble: mainly those who lost their passport, for which they got small loans from MFIs via the Internet,” says Sergey Mendeleev, head of InDeFi Smart Bank. “But it won't be a panacea.”
Firstly, modern phone scammers have some fantastic skills of suggestion. They manage to convince people to hide from their relatives, they “persuade” citizens for months to get loans, sell their homes, mortgages, and even such a ridiculous little thing as lifting a ban on public services, fraudsters will easily overcome.
Secondly, the number of people who decide to take advantage of this law and establish a self-prohibition is likely to be insignificant.
“I would be very surprised if there are more than 1% of the able-bodied population,” the expert explained. People constantly need money either for repairs, or for vacations, or for something else, who wants to limit themselves?
Thirdly, the very scheme of social engineering in very rare cases involves lending. They cheat there most often in a different way. Criminals «bred» for a loan already in the final part of catching the «big score». In almost 100% of cases before that, a person remotely first transfers the funds, deposits and savings he has, and, judging by the reports, there are quite a few of them. Yes, and criminals, as a rule, understand who they are talking to. The databases they have have information about whether the victim once ordered dumplings from a local eatery in Butovo, or they are talking to a person who regularly pays for sushi at a restaurant on Patriky, the expert explained.